Get ready to see the “Doc” – Great Bend Post Archive

For 42 years, Doc sat in the Mojave Desert serving as a target for the U.S. Navy. In 1987, Tony Mazzolini found Doc and began plans to remove and eventually restore the B-29 warbird to flying status. It would take another 12 years before Mazzolini and his team would be able to take possession of the airplane from the U.S. government.

This year’s Great Bend Airfest will mark just the 2nd time that the two remaining air worthy B-29’s in the world will appear together. Fifi, who was part of the 2015 Great Bend Airfest, will be joined this year by Doc, a newly restored B-29 that did not make its maiden flight until July 17th of 2016. Doc is a B-29 Superfortress and one of 1,644 manufactured in Wichita during World War II. Since 1987 when Tony Mazzolini found Doc rotting away in the Mojave Desert, plans have been in the works to restore the historic warbird to flying status to serve as a flying museum. Josh Well serves as Communications and Marketing Director for Doc’s Friends, a non-profit organization that helps maintain the historic plane. He says the nearly 20-year effort to get Doc from the desert to the air was not an easy process.

Josh Wells Audio

But that long effort paid off in July of 2016 when Doc finally returned to the air for the first time, a day that Wells says was very emotional for the hundreds of individuals who had helped in the project.

Josh Wells Audio

The next step for Doc will be the completion of a permanent home for the historic warbird. The new home for Doc will be an interactive B-29 Hangar and Education Center located at Eisenhower National Airport in Wichita. The 30,000 sq. ft. museum hangar will preserve Doc in flying condition and display the priceless Superfortress to the public.